Bill Shorten's hopes of more female MPs ignored as union numbers used to dump sitting senator

Dumped Labor senator Lisa Singh was the preferred choice of her party's rank and file in a pre-selection race but lost her spot on the Senate ticket in a factional power-play to a little-known union official.

The Tasmanian result, which has some within Labor calling for federal intervention to protect a sitting female senator, is another example of how union and factional bosses are able to use their superior voting strength to overwhelm party members' preferences in the allocation of prized parliamentary positions within the ALP.

Tasmanian senator Lisa Singh, pictured during an estimates hearing at Parliament House, has signed the "pollution free politics pledge" being pushed by green group 350.org. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

A tally of the votes cast in the June Senate pre-selection race obtained by Fairfax Media reveals, Ms Singh received the strong backing of ordinary Tasmanian ALP branch members, and would have been retained at the winnable third spot were it not for a weighted union component of the ballot.

This part of the vote saw the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union secretary, John Short, leapfrog Senator Singh into the third place behind the two other incumbent senators, the left's Ann Urquhart and the right's Helen Polley.

Of the 542 votes cast by members, senators Urquhart and Polley received 221 and 123 respectively, with the unaligned Senator Singh close behind on 110. Mr Short was some way back with 74 votes, with the remaining 14 going to others.

However, that tally made up only half of the final result because under state ALP rules the 100 union votes are then combined with another 100 conference delegates - both of which are factionally organised - and their combined total of 200 is weighted to make them equivalent to the 542 rank-and-file votes.

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Based on a loading formula in which each union-conference vote is worth 2.72 rank-and-file votes, the two halves resulted in Mr Short jumping ahead by a wafer-thin four votes, on 158 to Senator Singh on 154.

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That meant he won the third and final winnable position, relegating her to the unelectable fourth spot.

Disquiet within the party over the outcome continues as Labor MPs note the inconsistency of the leader Bill Shorten pledging half of Labor's parliamentarians will be made up by women within a decade, while union power continues to be deployed to find sinecures for officials - most of whom are male.

"When factions just divide up the spoils between themselves, to the detriment of the image of the party and the potential for government and the potential for maintaining numbers in the Senate, it becomes a federal responsibility," she had said.

Attending the Apple Isle's state Labor conference last weekend, Mr Shorten appeared impervious to the grievance, telling reporters, the rank and file had "spoken".

"It is inevitable in any engagement that not everyone is successful in being able to get the spots they want to do to be able to represent Labor," he said.

"Lisa Singh has served Labor well in the Senate and our new Senate team will also do the same thing.

"Labor's had its processes, the rank and file have spoken. It is always a difficult matter but the rank and file have spoken, according to the rules of the Tasmanian branch."

However sources in the Tasmanian party and within the federal parliamentary sphere, say the problem is that the rank and file had spoken and then been ignored.

Last week, former ACTU boss and Rudd government minister, Martin Ferguson, said union power within the ALP was now so excessive that individual MPs could not act without union say-so.